Better Call Saul Gets a Second Season by AMC Before Pilot Even Debuts

Before the first 10-episode season of Better Call Saul , the much-anticipated Breaking Bad spin-off debuts its first episode, AMC has ordered a second season of an additional 13 episodes of the series. However, the bad news is that the pilot episode has been pushed back from an air date that was originally going to be in November to sometime in 2015.

On Thursday, the AMC cable network made the announcement about ordering a second season of Better Call Saul, starring Bob Odenkirk as the shady but often darkly humorous shyster lawyer, Saul Goodman. AMC based its decision on how well production of the series has been progressing, and execs at the network seem impressed by the show’s quality. The second season is set to premiere in 2016.

As AMC president Charlie Collier stated, “we could not be more proud of nor more excited about the work to date,” adding that there will be “No half measures,” with Better Call Saul. The series, which also features Aaron Paul reprising his role from Breaking Bad as Jesse Pinkman, is a prequel (of sorts) and it follows the exploits and cases of Saul Goodman in the years before he ever met up with and became the attorney at law for chemistry teacher/meth kingpin Walter White in Breaking Bad.

Vince Gilligan will share the duties of being the director and co-showrunner of Better Call Saul with Peter Gould. Both men also worked together on Breaking Bad. At least some of the filming is being done in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Besides Aaron Paul, other former cast members from Breaking Bad who will be members of the cast include Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmantraut and Anna Gunn as Skylar White. It has also been rumored that Bryan Cranston will also appear in a few episodes, but whether he will be in them in real-time or flash backs or flash forwards, or some combination of these, has yet to be disclosed.

Some of the new cast members of Better CallSaul,who will be joining the ones fans first saw in Breaking Bad are Patrick Fabian, Michael McKean, Michael Mando, and Rhea Seehorn.

Fast-talking crooked lawyer Saul Goodman started out as a relatively minor character on Breaking Bad, but Bob Odenkirk did such a great acting job that he was quickly made a regular cast member. AMC is hoping that fans of Breaking Bad will tune in in droves to see this spin-off, which has been described as being more humorous than Breaking Bad, but still with plenty of action and thrills, for good measure.

Aaron Paul’s return as Jesse Pinkman is yet another major reason why fans will likely be glued to their TV sets whenever Better Call Saul debuts. It will be interesting to find out if Jesse will be shown at the high school he attended more, and if we will perhaps get to see him in chemistry class, being taught by Walter White before he was first diagnosed with cancer and “broke bad.”

September 2013 is when AMC first announced its intentions of creating the seriesBetter Call Saul. AMC president Charlie Collier stated that his network and everybody working on the show are doing their best to ensure that Better Call Saul “gets the launch it deserves.”

The series finale of Breaking Bad topped 10.3 million viewers. If Better Call Saul even gets half that number of viewers for its pilot episode, it will likely be considered to be a success. With enough promotion and publicity behind it, Better Call Saul might become yet another winner for AMC, and a favorite TV series with fans.